The Grendel Affair: A SPI Files Novel

by Shearin, Lisa

  A flash drive.

  “And maybe more than we bargained for,” he murmured.

  8

  FOR the first time this week I was grateful for the ice and snow—as a pack for the left side of my face.

  I made yet another snowball and held it to my head. My hand was numb from holding snowballs, even through gloves that were supposed to be waterproof.

  Yasha handed me the confiscated brass knuckles, saying “Hair of dog. Is that the phrase?”

  “Close enough.” I slipped them on the hand not holding the snowball. Nice fit. I put my glove back on over them. At least I had a trophy for my trouble.

  Calvin, who—conveniently for me—had been an army field medic in Iraq, deemed my brain to be non-concussed.

  “Though if she’d been fifty or sixty years younger, I would have advised a trip to the ER,” he said with a completely straight face. “The guys were taking bets on the winner. Half were betting on the old woman.”

  Yasha nodded in agreement. “The babushka is a biter.”

  “Though nice style points there with the hat,” Calvin added. “We’ve never considered using hats as weapons. Maybe we should add it to our training.”

  “I’d break every bone in my hand if I punched you,” I said. “You realize that’s the only thing saving you, right?”

  The SPI commando with no neck gave me only one upward twitch of his lips. The man was a master of self-control.

  I was in the SUV with Yasha and Calvin. Ian was outside on the phone. After relaying what had happened, he was doing very little talking and a whole lot of listening.

  We had an awkward situation. If you could call having a dead body literally on ice and the knife-wielding granny who’d done the deed in nonpolice custody awkward. Which, legally speaking, was leaps and bounds beyond awkward. Right now we were probably breaking laws I’d never even heard of. Our guys had removed the tractor from the car. If you didn’t get too close to either one (say within twenty yards or so) both looked perfectly fine, as far as average vehicle condition went in New York.

  “This is the second murder scene I’ve walked in on in less than twenty-four hours,” I said. “Is that a company record?”

  “Is not even close,” Yasha told me.

  “Good.”

  “Though I think is record for newbie.”

  “Great. Glad to know I’m making a difference.”

  “And I know is first time SPI agent use tractor to catch killer.”

  Calvin coughed, though it sounded more like he choked on a laugh.

  I ignored him with as much dignity as I could muster, considering I had the imprint of the Queen of England’s brass knuckles on the side of my head. I looked out the window at my path of demolition and sighed.

  While the destruction was still there, our team in their Green-Wood maintenance coveralls were not. Only two remained. They were flanking the assassin who was seated on the bench Ian had used to go through her purse. Her hat was back on her head, and while dented, was more or less in one piece. Her blue coat was draped around her shoulders and doing a nice job of hiding the handcuffs from any curious passersby. Fortunately for us, there weren’t any.

  Ian got off the phone and came over to my open window. While I had been icing my head, Ian had made a quick trip back up to the body.

  “Was it him?” I asked.

  “License and credit cards confirm that he’s James Tarbert from Tribeca.”

  “I wonder how Ollie knew him?”

  “Right now, we can’t ask either one of them. The name matches the one on the key, so I’d say he was using the family mausoleum for more than dearly departed relatives.”

  “Once the police locate his next of kin, he’ll be joining them.”

  Ian nodded. “As soon as we’re out of here, the Seventy-second Precinct will get an anonymous call about a body in Green-Wood—one that’s not in a coffin. Captain Norwood will get the flash drive back to headquarters. Kenji will let us know what’s on it.”

  I inclined my head toward Tarbert’s killer. “What about her?”

  “The team will take our geriatric Golden Gloves winner in for questioning and find out who hired her. Hopefully she’ll know. A lot of the time contract kills are arranged without a face-to-face meeting. Maybe we’ll get lucky and she’ll at least have a name.”

  I hesitated. “What if she’s not in the mood for a chat?”

  “She’ll talk, and afterward she won’t remember a thing.”

  “Uh . . . do I want to know how they’re going to do that?”

  “Probably not. But it sounds worse than it is. We have people who are very good at what they do—getting information with no pain or injury to the suspect.”

  “Kind of like a Vulcan mind meld?”

  “Vaguely. She won’t remember a thing after stabbing the guy and before turning up on the Seventy-second’s doorstep, carrying her black purse full of evidence. As soon as she’s dropped off, another anonymous tip will be called in.”

  “To tell the cops to go look out their front door?”

  “Basically.”

  “You’ve done this before.”

  “Many times.”

  “And it always goes as planned.”

  “Without fail.”

  “I’ve never been involved before.”

  “I’m very much aware of that. I’m trying to think positive.”

  I looked out at the tractor and Buick. “What about the mess?”

  “The boss is a patron of Green-Wood,” Ian said. “She’ll make a donation that will more than repair the damage caused by”—he leveled a stare at me—“an unknown teenager who took a joyride on a tractor. Or if you’re feeling really guilty, I’m sure she’d be willing to take it out of your pay.”

  I winced. “I’d be as old as the queen over there by the time it’s paid off.”

  “Which is why the boss will take care of it.”

  “Is she going to be mad?”

  “Probably. But she’s an ends-justifies-the-means kind of woman.”

  Yasha nodded knowingly. “Dragons, they are like that.”

  I took one last look at the squashed Buick. “Good to know. I think.”

  The white Suburban pulled up on the road closest to the bench, and the two agents escorted the little old lady to it. When the SUV pulled away, Ian opened my door and I scooted over so he could get in. Calvin was already in the passenger’s seat.

  “We gonna go get ourselves a monster head?” I asked Ian.

  He shut the door and buckled in. “Affirmative. Grab it and get out. The tip about the body won’t be called in until we’re clear, but with all the noise you made—”

  “Catching the killer,” I reminded him.

  “Yes, but the Seventy-second is only a few blocks from here, and it wouldn’t take much—”

  Calvin half turned, his index finger on the comms unit in his ear. “The captain says two Green-Wood security cars are heading this way.”

  “—to get the police involved,” Ian finished with an I-told-you-so look. “Looks like they’ll be getting that call sooner than we’d like.”

  Yasha needed no further encouragement and got us moving. He glanced in the rearview at Ian. “Would be helpful to know where we are going.”

  “Sorry, buddy. Keep going straight. Calvin, hand me that map in the door.”

  Calvin tossed it back, and Ian found where we were now, used his index finger to trace a path to where we were going, and directed Yasha to our destination. It was conveniently close to the maintenance entrance and exit from the cemetery, away from Green-Wood security, and far away from the newly dead Tarbert and the newly destroyed tractor and Buick.

  “Can I see the key?” I asked Ian.

  He handed it to me and I turned it over in my hand. It had been bronze before a
ge had given it a verdigris patina. It had the name “Tarbert” in raised lettering on the rounded end. The other two keys were definitely modern, but they had also darkened with age.

  “It’s got a family name on it and looks old, but how did you know it was a key to a Green-Wood mausoleum?”

  “Seen them before.”

  “Another knowledge perk of our chosen profession?”

  “You got it.”

  “And where the mausoleum is?”

  He held up his phone. “As close as a quick search on Green-Wood’s website. There’s only one listing for Tarbert, and it’s a mausoleum. Section sixty-one, Hill Side Path, off Valley Avenue.” He looked closely at the side of my head. “You all right?”

  “Sure. I get chocked in the head with brass knuckles all the time.” I was starting to lisp either from swollen or frozen lips; I must have gotten hit there, too.

  “When we get there, I want you to—”

  “Let me guess. Stay right where I am.”

  Ian almost smiled. Almost. “I was going to say that if you’re up to it, you can come with me.”

  I almost dropped my snowball.

  “You’ve earned it,” he said.

  A reward was usually a good thing. What kind of reward was going into a mausoleum to look for a mummified monster head?

  • • •

  Ian and I made our way through the snow to the Tarbert family mausoleum. As the path name indicated, it was set into the side of a hill. The branches of a massive evergreen sheltered most of the mausoleum, so the snow wasn’t piled up against the door. Equally lucky for us, the area around Valley Avenue was deserted. No maintenance workers, no guests, no homicidal old ladies—but best of all, no security or police, at least not yet. Yasha and Calvin were keeping watch, and the only sound was the crunch of our boots in the snow.

  I took a deep breath and blew it out in a blissful sigh. “Nothing but dead people.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I’m glad that there’s nothing but dead people around. They’re perfectly behaved.”

  “You sure about that?” Ian’s eyes twinkled wickedly as he turned the key in the lock of the brownstone mausoleum. A lock that shared the door with a massive horned lion’s head clenching a knocker in its fanged mouth. “Maybe we should knock first.”

  “So that’s your idea of humor?”

  Ian grinned and gave the bronze door a solid hit with his shoulder to get it open. “Just keeping it real for you, newbie.”

  We went inside.

  There were five stained glass skylights in the shape of a pentangle that weren’t visible from the outside. The evergreen’s branches overhead had kept them relatively free of snow, giving us at least some light to see by. From what I could tell, the mausoleum looked a lot bigger on the inside than it appeared on the outside. It occurred to me that I didn’t have a flashlight.

  “Crap. Do you have a flashl—”

  “Of course.” Ian started pushing the door closed.

  “Wait! Don’t—”

  He closed the door before I could stop him.

  “We have the key,” he assured me, “and it can’t be locked from the outside without it. It’s a dead bolt.”

  “And the laughs just keep coming.”

  Ian locked the door and shined his light around. “I think so.” He kept his voice low. There was no one in here to hear us, but the location seemed to demand whispers. “And if security or the police start searching the entire cemetery—and eventually they will—Yasha and Calvin will leave until I call them back.”

  “Leave? As in leave us here? I didn’t hear you tell them that.”

  “Didn’t need to. It’s standard operating procedure. With them gone and the door closed, unless anyone looks closely for footprints, no one will know we’re here.”

  “Why doesn’t that make me feel warm and fuzzy?”

  “Because you have no sense of adventure.”

  “Do so.”

  “Where?”

  “At the moment it’s MIA, but I have one.”

  “Right.”

  I followed the track of Ian’s flashlight. “I expected cobwebs.”

  “Ever been in a mausoleum before?”

  “Nope. The past day has been full of firsts.”

  Ian’s light revealed a pair of oil lamps set in niches on either side of the iron door.

  “Got a lighter?” I asked.

  He smiled and took one out of his pocket.

  “You don’t smoke,” I said.

  “I don’t, but you never know when you’ll need to set fire to something.”

  I ignored anything that might mean, and removed the glass globe. Ian flicked his Bic, lighting one lamp, then the other. Both were only half full of oil, but hopefully we weren’t going to be here that long.

  Beside one of the lamps was a key identical to the one we’d used to get in. The name Tarbert was on this one, too.

  “Why is there another key in here?”

  “In case one of the Tarberts wasn’t dead when they were put in here,” Ian said. “Paranoia was popular with the Victorians. Doctors back then occasionally jumped the gun declaring someone dead.”

  I quickly put the key right back where I found it, and tried not to think that a Tarbert had actually needed to use it.

  The lamps illuminated the front part of the mausoleum, but the back was still in shadow.

  There were six urn niches on each side of the mausoleum door, stacked three high and two across, some with names and dates engraved in their stone fronts, others empty and waiting for another Tarbert to die and be reduced to ashes.

  “An extra key wouldn’t do them much good,” I muttered.

  The most recent internment was dated a month ago. Dr. Jonathan Tarbert. I looked at the birth date and did the math. He’d been only thirty-eight.

  “Did you note James Tarbert’s birthday on his license by any chance?” I asked Ian.

  “I took a picture so I wouldn’t have to.” Seconds later, his face was illuminated by the glow of his phone. “Thirty-eight.”

  “And date of birth?”

  “September seventh.”

  I indicated the urn niche. “The month, date, and year are exactly the same as the mausoleum’s newest tenant. Whatcha wanna bet Dr. Jonathan here was his twin brother.”

  Ian shone the flashlight on the marble panel. “Damn. Died last month.”

  “Or was killed. It could be worth looking into.”

  “People generally don’t drop dead in their thirties without help.”

  Ian resumed surveying the mausoleum. Farther back from the urns were the coffin-sized niches. All had names with birth and death dates, the oldest dating back to 1851. I hoped James Tarbert had wanted to be cremated like his brother; the coffin section was strictly “no vacancy.”

  I swallowed. “Any of those look big enough for the head of a ten-foot-tall monster?”

  “Not to me.” Ian shone his light around. “In fact, nothing in here says ‘monster head container’ to me.”

  The interior of the mausoleum was symmetrical down to the decorative vases holding matching dead flowers.

  The drawers—or whatever they were called—for the coffins were also stacked three high. Three on one wall, three on the other. The back wall had a total of six, stacked three high and two across, like the urn niches.

  The only thing that didn’t come in matched sets was the single square column in the exact center of the room. Each of the stone column’s four panels had to be at least two foot across.

  I slowly walked around it, scanning it from top to bottom. “Is it just me, or is this column needlessly big?”

  Ian looked up at the ceiling. “And it doesn’t appear to be structurally necessary.”

  On each panel, at points exactly betwee
n the floor and the ceiling, were stone replicas of the bronze horned lion’s head that was on the door. Their mouths were open like they were roaring. The lions were more or less at eye level, on a person of normal height. Ian had to duck his head to see inside the mouths. He aimed the flashlight’s beam inside.

  “Nothing there,” he said. He repeated the exam on the next two, leaning to look closer at the last lion. “You might be on to something,” he murmured. “There’s a place in here for a key.” He took the mausoleum key out of his pocket and stuck it and half his hand into the lion’s mouth. “I’m thinking that . . .”

  There was a click and the entire panel opened on silent hinges.

  Ian shone the light inside and then down. The column was hollow, with a hole in the floor just wide enough for one person, with what looked like a modern aluminum ladder descending into darkness.

  “Being in a mausoleum’s not bad enough,” I said, “now we get to find out what’s in a dark pit underneath one.”

  “A chamber under a mausoleum is called a crypt,” Ian told me.

  “Lovely.”

  “I’ll go first.”

  “I’ll let you.”

  Ian began his descent.

  “Why would anyone have a second way out in a mausoleum?” I asked.

  “Could be the same reason the Tarberts left oil lamps and an extra key.”

  He reached the bottom of the ladder, shining the flashlight around. There weren’t any shouts or gunshots, so it must not have been too bad. My skin started prickling when I realized that my only source of light was two sputtering oil lamps, and my company was seventeen dead Tarberts.

  Ian’s voice echoed eerily from below. “I think we need a bigger truck.”

  I quickly knelt on the floor next to the hole. “What is it?”

  “They say you can’t take it with you, but one or more of the Tarberts sure tried.”

  Curiosity may or may not kill cats, but it motivated me. “I’m coming down.”

  “I thought you would. Put out those lamps before you do.”

  I did, and on my way down the ladder, I heard a click like a switch being flipped, and honest-to-God lights came on down below. Ian gave an impressed whistle.